American Horror Story‘s Lily Rabe is set to star in Miss Stevens from Beachside Films and Gilbert Films. Rabe stars as the title character, a teacher who accompanies three students to a high school drama competition. Students in the coming-of-age/character and life study are played by Timothee Chalamet (Interstellar), Lili Reinhart (Kings of Summer) and Anthony Quintal (Creator of Lohanthony YouTube channel). Julia Hart, who co-wrote with Jordan Horowitz, is making her feature directing debut. Rob Huebel (The Descendants) co-stars.

Hart previously wrote the Blacklist script and upcoming Drafthouse Films release The Keeping Room, and is currently writing the limited HBO series Madame X. Production on Miss Stevens is under way in California. Alex Turtletaub and Michael B. Clark are producing for Beachside, with Horowitz and Gary Gilbert producing for Gilbert Films. Beachside is financing the picture.

Rabe is repped by ICM Partners, which packaged the film and will co-rep domestic rights with WME Global. Reinhart is also repped by ICM Partners as well as Peikoff Mahan and Anonymous Content. Quintal and Hart are repped by WME, Chalamet is repped by UTA, and Huebel is repped by UTA and Principato-Young.

Mark O’Brien has joined Amy Adams, Jeremy Renner and Forrest Whitaker in Paramount Pictures’ Story Of Your Life for director Denis Villeneuve. O’Brien will play Lt. Marks, a key member of the military team that confronts the arrival of aliens to determine whether they are friendly or hostile. With a script by Eric Heisserer from a short story by award winning sci-fi writer Ted Chiang, the picture was acquired by Paramount at this year’s Cannes Film Festival. 21 Laps and Film Nation are producing.

This is the second big move for O’Brien this year, who joined the cast of AMC’s Halt and Catch Fire in February in the character of Tom Rendon. He previously spent six seasons on the Canadian series Republic of Doyle. O’Brien is repped by Don Buchwald and Associates, Thruline Entertainment and The Characters Agency.

Frank The Bastard, a tale of buried secrets and hostile small-town conspiracies, will be released theatrically July 24 via Paladin, company president Mark Urman announced. Written and directed by Brad Coley and produced by Ged Dickersin, the film stars Rachel Miner, William Sadler, Wendy Vanden Heuvel, Andy Comeau, Ellen Albertini Dow, and Chris Sarandon.

The story centers on Clair Defina (Miner), who returns from New York City to the childhood home she and her father fled after her mother’s death. Clair immediately encounters an undercurrent of secrecy and hostility, most of it linked to local bigwig Cyrus Gast (Sadler). As Clair comes face to face with a dark legacy, she also encounters enigmatic Frank Byron, (Comeau) Cyrus’ bastard son, who turns out to be her only ally.